Texas Monthly - democratshttp://www.texasmonthly.com/tags/democrats
enBum Steers 2015http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/bum-steers-2015
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>No one suggested that 2014 would be the year that the party roared back to life. No one argued that the Democrats would put the Republicans in a tough spot come Election Day. But did anyone think that Davis, after all the national exposure and all the money that flowed into her coffers, would be throttled so badly by Republican Greg Abbott in her race to become governor? In the end, she lost by more percentage points than Tony Sanchez did in 2002. And she won 270,499 fewer votes than Bill White did in 2010 in his doomed effort against Perry. It’s not that the Democrats underperformed. It’s that the party that hasn’t won a statewide race since 1994 actually dug itself an even deeper hole!</p>
<p>For Davis, her campaign started poorly—this magazine compared her rollout to the debut of the Bag o’ Glass from Mainway Toys—and things seemed to only go downhill from there. Infighting! Staff shake-ups! Tension with the press! Missteps over her own biography! And to add insult to injury, after the dust had settled, the state Senate seat she gave up to run against Abbott was claimed by a Republican. Davis may be out of politics for now, but she didn’t walk away empty-handed: she is our Bum Steer of the Year.&nbsp;</p>
<p>FURTHER EVIDENCE THAT EVERYTHING IS INDEED BIGGER IN TEXAS<br />
An Austin woman raised over $1,800 on Kickstarter to create, as she explained in her campaign statement, “a huge vagina (vulva) statue about the size of a person (six feet tall) in support of Texas Women. It will be to scale.”&nbsp;</p>
<p>THEY HAD ’EM ALL LINED OUT AT THE POLLS<br />
Belinda Solis and Veronica Saldivar each pleaded guilty to one count of election fraud on charges of vote-buying in the elections for the Donna ISD school board and a Hidalgo County commissioner’s seat. They were arrested after a campaign worker admitted to FBI agents that he supplied the women with cocaine in exchange for their votes.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Dennis Bonnen" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31788 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Dennis Bonnen attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_Dennis-Bonnen_340.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>HOW ABOUT AN INTERPRETER WHO COULD DO DUMBASS?<br />
Referring to educating children displaced by Hurricane Katrina during a hearing on Texas education, state representative Dennis Bonnen, a Republican from Angleton, said, “We had to have a teacher who could do coonass in English.”</p>
<p><img alt="PETA chicken monument" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31789 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__PETA chicken monument attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_PETA-chicken-monument_340.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>WHO WANTS TO FRICASSEE THAT BY THE ROADSIDE?<br />
PETA asked the Texas Department of Transportation for permission to erect a ten-foot-high granite monument at a highway intersection in Bryan in memory of the chickens that died there in a tractor-trailer rollover accident.</p>
<p>KIDS, LET THAT BE AN EXPENSIVE, HEARTBREAKING LESSON TO YOU<br />
Three UT engineering students traveled to Virginia to see a $1 million experimental satellite they’d worked on for months launched into orbit on a rocket ferrying supplies to the International Space Station. The students had to be rushed to safety when the unmanned flight, outsourced to a private company by NASA, ended in a massive explosion seconds after liftoff.&nbsp;</p>
<p>“YEAH, BABY, THAT’S <em>C</em> AS IN ‘COBRA’ ”<br />
Governor Rick Perry earned a fashion grade of C as Women’s Wear Daily’s Man of the Week.&nbsp;</p>
<p>HIS RANK DECEPTION MADE HIM THINK HE COULD DECLARE MARITAL LAW<br />
Michael Douglas McDowell, of Fort Worth, pleaded guilty to charges of impersonating a public servant and bigamy. For more than a decade, Powell passed himself off as an Army intelligence officer, though he had never served in the military. Powell even wore a brigadier general’s uniform at his 2011 wedding, which was held while he was married to another woman.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
IN HER DEFENSE, SHE LIKES STRAPPING YOUNG MEN<br />
State licensing authorities said they would investigate Heart 2 Heart Montessori Academy, a day care in Willow Park, after the owner was accused of having duct-taped a boy to his nap mat after he refused to settle down.</p>
<p><img alt="Jo Lynn Haussmann, Keller ISD" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31790 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Jo Lynn Haussmann, Keller ISD attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_Keller-ISD--board-member--Jo-Lynn-Haussmann.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" />&nbsp;<br />
AND A CRETIN ON THE SCHOOL BOARD!!!!!<br />
In response to the election of Shahid Shafi to the Southlake City Council, Keller ISD school board member Jo Lynn Haussmann posted on Facebook, “SOUTH LAKE—do you realize because SO FEW voters took the time and responsibility to VOTE in the municipal elections YOU NOW HAVE A ‘MUSLIM’ on the City Council!!! What A SHAME!!!!”<br />
&nbsp;<br />
&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Stiffs Darrin-Klimek" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31791 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Stiffs Darrin-Klimek attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_STIFFS_Darrin-Klimek.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /><br />
TALK ABOUT GETTING STIFFED<br />
A Fort Worth landlord called police when he discovered that the owners of Johnson Family Mortuary, the tenants he had ordered to vacate the premises two weeks earlier, had left eight decomposing corpses behind.</p>
<p>HE THOUGHT GOOD FECES MADE GOOD NEIGHBORS<br />
Harris County constables investigated complaints from homeowners who found human excrement on their driveways on multiple occasions. Surveillance video showed that the culprit was a middle-aged man who struck in the middle of the night.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
HE COULDN’T BE BOTHERED TO GO TO THE ALAMO BOWL<br />
Daniel Athens was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for urinating on the Alamo.</p>
<p><img alt="Illustration-by-Ross-MacDonald" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31792 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Illustration-by-Ross-MacDonald attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_NAKED_Illustration-by-Ross-MacDonald.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /><br />
“ATTENTION, ALL UNITS: SUSPECT EASTBOUND, WEARINGNOTHING BUT A SMILE”<br />
As Tyler police tried to arrest Daniel Cobb on an aggravated-robbery warrant, he fled on foot and inexplicably stripped off all his clothes. Cobb eluded officers and was later spotted (naked) getting into a car, which left the scene.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
SAVE MONEY. LIVE BETTER, ON THE RUN<br />
Sustained by shoplifted food and drink, a runaway fourteen-year-old boy lived in a Corsicana Walmart for two days before anyone noticed.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS OF THE INAUGURAL TEXAS MONTHLY BUM STEER “DUMB VOYEUR” AWARDS!</p>
<p><img alt="BS_george-Apreza" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31793 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__BS_george-Apreza attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_george-Apreza.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>WOULD YOU SAY YOU LOOK GUILTIER IN CLIP A or CLIP B, OR ABOUT THE SAME?<br />
George Apreza was arrested and charged with improper photography when a co-worker found a cellphone that was recording the restroom activity of the Tomball optical shop where they worked. Police found video footage on the phone showing Apreza setting up and testing the camera.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Andrew-Crawford-Boden" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31794 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Andrew-Crawford-Boden attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_Andrew-Crawford-Boden.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>IT WOULD BE SHOCKING IF THE CHARGES DIDN’T STICK<br />
Andrew Crawford Boden, of Irving, was arrested for improper photography after a store employee became suspicious about a restroom electrical outlet she noticed sliding down the wall. Police discovered that it was a stick-on spy camera and that it contained images of Boden planting it. &nbsp;</p>
<p>LIKE THE FACT THAT HE WAS DRIVING IN SCUBA GEAR<br />
Andy Lee House, of Lufkin, pleaded guilty to fraud after he admitted running his ultra-rare Bugatti off the road and into a waterway to collect a $2.2 million insurance policy. House initially claimed it was an accident, but a bystander’s video, which went viral, helped uncover flaws in his story.</p>
<p>HE WANTED TO PROVE HE COULD MEASURE UP TO THE OTHER CANDIDATES<br />
A Dallas man was cited for obscene display after an employee at Texas Workforce Solutions notified authorities that he had sent them a photo of his penis along with his résumé.&nbsp;</p>
<p>“DROP THE KNIFE, MA’AM—AND THE STICK”<br />
Charmelle Henry was arrested after she brandished a knife at a Midland food stand and threatened to “stab in cold blood” the employees if they refused to give her a corndog. &nbsp;</p>
<p>IT WAS A VINTAGE PENAL NOIR WITH AN ARRESTING BOUQUET<br />
Saying she felt responsible for her boyfriend’s arrest earlier that day, Alicia Walicke brazenly stole a bottle of wine from a Cedar Park convenience store. She then sat out front drinking it so that the police would arrest her and she could go to jail too.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Andrew-Crawford-Boden" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31795 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__BS_'Sheila-Jackson-Lee;immigration;congresswoman;Houston-Chronicle;Marie-De-Jesus' attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_%27Sheila-Jackson-Lee%3Bimmigration%3Bcongresswoman%3BHouston-Chronicle%3BMarie-De-Jesus%27.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>SHE SAID “VEILED” ATTEMPT<br />
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Houston, called Republican threats to sue the president over Obamacare a “veiled attempt at impeachment,” moralizing that the Democrats who controlled the House of Representatives during George W. Bush’s presidency had never stooped so low. Soon after, an online news source cited a 2008 resolution that Jackson had co-sponsored calling for Bush’s impeachment.</p>
<p>EXCEPT FOR THAT, HE DID A FIRST-CLASS JOB<br />
Charles Allen Tollett, of Borger, was sentenced to two years probation for throwing away hundreds of pieces of mail that he was supposed to deliver on his postal route in Dumas. &nbsp;</p>
<p>THE “REMOVE HUSK BEFORE SNORTING” LABEL WAS A TIP-OFF<br />
A 46-year-old El Salvadoran man was arrested at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport after customs officers discovered that two hundred tamales in his luggage were stuffed with cocaine.&nbsp;</p>
<p>FOR A LITTLE EXTRA, YOU CAN BE THERE AT LIFT-ARF<br />
Expanding their offerings beyond launching cremated human remains into orbit, Houston-based Celestis announced a similar service for cremated pets, with prices starting at $995.</p>
<p><img alt="" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31796 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__ attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_%27photography%2Chorizontal%2Cnobody%2Ccolor-image%2C-studio-shoot%2C-interio%27.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>THEY’D LIKE TO ASK ABOUT ANY SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET<br />
Austin police announced that they were interested in speaking with an unknown Goodwill patron who donated a human skull to one of the organization’s Austin stores.</p>
<p><img alt="" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31802 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__ attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_IlloKendallJones_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>LIKE IT OR NOT, SHE&#8217;S GOT GAME<br />
Kendall Jones, of Cleburne, sparked widespread outrage when she posted photos from a hunting trip to Africa on Facebook. The pictures showed the nineteen-year-old beaming as she sat next to or on top of the many exotic wild animals she killed, including a lion, a rhino, and an elephant. Responding to the torrent of criticism, Jones suggested that some of the animals had only been tranquilized.&nbsp;</p>
<p>HE WAS WAY TOO BRIGHT FOR HIS OWN GOOD<br />
The pilot of an Austin police helicopter was momentarily blinded by someone pointing a laser at the aircraft from the ground. Tracking the beam from the air, the pilot guided police to a nearby home, where they arrested Gabriel Ruedas Jr., finding a laser pointer in the pocket of his sweatshirt.&nbsp;</p>
<p>JUST WAIT TILL I. B. PIMPIN GETS CALLED UP TO THE BIG LEAGUES<br />
Even though Astros outfielder L. J. Hoes spent much of the season in the minors or on the bench, Fanbuild.com sold out of its first two printings of an Astros-themed T-shirt emblazoned with “Houston Loves Hoes.”</p>
<p><img alt="CharlesBrandon_" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31803 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__CharlesBrandon_ attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_CharlesBrandon_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>NO JURY WOULD INFERNO OFFENSE WAS INTENDED<br />
Charles Brandon admitted that he claimed to be a fire marshal to gain free entry to a Grapevine nightclub. He was arrested when the actual fire marshal happened to be at the bar.&nbsp;<br />
&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="BS_LouieGohmert" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31804 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__BS_LouieGohmert attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_LouieGohmert_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>HE’S OBSESSIVE ABOUT STAYING ON MASSAGE<br />
Congressman Louie Gohmert, a Republican from Tyler, said he opposed gays in the military based on the example of the ancient Greeks, whose gay soldiers, he said, would massage one another before battle. Gohmert said that today “it’s a different kind of war, and if you’re sitting around getting massages all day, ready to go in the big, planned battle, then you’re not going to last very long.”&nbsp;</p>
<p>“YOU GOT NO CLASS! YOU GOT NO SENSE! NEXT TIME DESTROY THE EVIDENCE!”<br />
San Marcos school board trustee Paul Mayhew demanded to see the tryout score sheets when his daughter failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad. School officials claimed that they had been taken to a field in Seguin and burned, but Mayhew found them more or less intact in a garbage pile. They did indeed show that his daughter should have earned a spot on the team.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31814 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__ attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_NomiMims_0115_4.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /><img alt="Robert Wallace" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31807 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Robert Wallace attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_RobertWallace_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /><br />
ACTUALLY, HE WAS HOPING FOR STRIPPER LAYAWAY<br />
Robert Wallace sued Nomi Mims, a dancer he’d met at a Houston gentlemen’s club, because Mims refused to return the Harry Potter DVDs, cash, and laptop he claimed he loaned her while they were dating. In a TV interview, Mims insisted the relationship was strictly professional and said, “There’s no such thing as stripper refunds.” &nbsp;</p>
<p>SORRY, KIDS, MR. LOOKADOO HAD TO CANCEL—HE HAD A LOT COME UP<br />
Justin Lookadoo, a youth motivational speaker from McKinney, was arrested for public intoxication in Indiana on his way to an engagement at a middle school camp. Police found him passed out in his car, smelling strongly of alcohol, with vomit on the seat next to him.</p>
<p>SOON ENOUGH HE HAD A BUNK ALL TO HIMSELF<br />
Zakry Ernest Zapata was arrested for public intoxication after he went door-to-door in a Bryan neighborhood, demanding that alarmed residents let him sleep inside their homes. &nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Charles Barkely" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31809 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Charles Barkely attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_CharlesBarkely_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>TO: CHARLES BARKLEY<br />
FROM: TEXAS MONTHLY<br />
RE: POT AND KETTLE<br />
During the Spurs’ run through the NBA playoffs, commentator Charles Barkley repeatedly and gratuitously made jokes about San Antonio women and their weight. “There’s some big ol’ women down there,” he said. “That’s a gold mine for Weight Watchers.” &nbsp;</p>
<p>THEY BRIEFLY CONSIDERED THE NAME “NITS ’N SIPS”<br />
Jessica Mester and Michelle Sunshine, of Austin, opened Lousted, a salon where parents can drink wine while their children’s lice are removed. &nbsp;</p>
<p>YOU: DISCREET, WILLING TO KILL FOR CASH. ME: STUPID<br />
After Steve Gordon, of Allen, contacted a “hit man” on Craigslist and paid him $25,000 to kill his wife, the man failed to act, so Gordon threatened to go to the police; the man then threatened to kill him. Frightened, Gordon did go to the police, and he was convicted of solicitation of murder.&nbsp;</p>
<p>LABELING IT “TUBE STEAK” DIDN’T FOOL ANYONE<br />
A lawsuit against the manager of MT Supermarket, in Austin, alleged the defendant had packaged beef penis for sale. &nbsp;</p>
<p>I’M JUSHT TRYNA TEE OFF, OFFISHER<br />
Damian Mandola, a founder of&nbsp;Carrabba’s, was arrested by Hays County authorities for breaking into a Driftwood winery and stealing a bottle of wine, which was allegedly found shortly thereafter in his getaway vehicle, a golf cart.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Maya Angelou" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31810 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Maya Angelou attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_MayaAngelou_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.6;">UNFORTUNATELY RAY CHARLES WAS ALSO UNAVAILABLE</span></p>
<p><img alt="Lake Conroe Drone" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31811 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Lake Conroe Drone attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_LkConroeDrone_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>WITH A PRICE TAG LIKE THAT, IT WAS BOUND TO MAKE A SPLASH<br />
The Montgomery County sheriff&#8217;s office reported that its $250,000 drone crashed and sank in Lake Conroe during a training exercise. &nbsp;</p>
<p>WHAT DO PEOPLE HAVE AGAINST L.J.?<br />
Houston GOP political consultant Allen Blakemore said a political action committee created by his firm’s comptroller would be shutdown because of negative PR generated by its name, Boats ’N Hoes.&nbsp;<br />
&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Cruz Facebook Poll" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31815 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Cruz Facebook Poll attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_CruzFacebookPoll_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 10, HOW GOOD WAS THAT IDEA?<br />
On his Facebook page, U.S. senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Houston, conducted a “quick poll”&nbsp;meant to highlight dissatisfaction with Obamacare, but the comments suggested overwhelming support for the measure.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>
<p>AS IF LOSING 11 GAMES TO THE ASTROS WEREN’T REASON ENOUGH<br />
Nearing the end of his disastrous eighth full season with the Texas Rangers, manager Ron Washington abruptly resigned, stating that it was “best for me and my family.” Less than two weeks later, he revealed at a press conference that he’d resigned because he had been unfaithful to his wife.&nbsp;</p>
<p>WITH A $2 OFF COUPON, IT COULD’VE BEEN A STEAL<br />
A man paid for a $4.69 fried catfish dinner at Ronnie’s Catfish &amp; More, in Dallas, then pulled out a gun and demanded that the cashier hand over the money in the register. The employee refused, instead offering the robber the contents of the tip jar, about $3. He took it, waited until his order was ready, and left just before police arrived. &nbsp;<br />
&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Tony Romo Lovesac" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31816 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Tony Romo Lovesac attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_TonyRomo_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>THANKS, WE’LL TAKE A COMPLETE PASS<br />
Candice Romo, the wife of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, announced that she was donating Romo’s premarriage Lovesac beanbag to a charity garage sale. “Whoever gets that probably needs to wash it really good,” she said. “Who knows what’s living in there.”&nbsp;</p>
<p>PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS NOW<br />
A San Antonio man lost several fingers while attempting to impress friends by putting a penny on a railroad track beneath a moving train.&nbsp;</p>
<p>TWO, FOUR, SIX, EIGHT! WE WANT TO TELECOMMUNICATE!<br />
Early in the football season, Baylor officials received complaints that parts of McLane Stadium’s state-of-the-art public Wi-Fi network were effectively down throughout the games. It turned out that signals in the freshman section were blocked whenever students there stood on their seats, which they did for most of the game.</p>
<p>CALL IT DIVINE WRITE<br />
On a San Antonio religious talk show, former U.S. House majority leader Tom DeLay, a Republican from Sugar Land, attributed the woes of the federal government to the fact that “we stopped realizing that God created this nation, that he wrote the Constitution.”&nbsp;</p>
<p>MIND IF I CUT IN?<br />
San Antonio man Antonio Flores Narcisso, angry at his roommate for making too much noise while having a threesome, was accused of breaking down the door to the man’s room and stabbing him in front of his female companions.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Timeshia Brown Congratulations" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31821 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Timeshia Brown Congratulations attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_TimeshiaBrown_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>IT APPEARED IN THE “NOT WANTED” ADS<br />
In an East Texas paper Timeshia Brown published a note of congratulations to her husband and his mistress on the upcoming birth of their child. &nbsp;</p>
<p>IF THAT WAS AN APOLOGY, IT WAS HALF-FARTED&nbsp;<br />
Lago Vista police detective Lawrence Michael Jonap was arrested and charged with assault. His victim, a police department communications operator, said that Jonap sneaked up behind him and kicked him in the back. The next day Jonap shook the man’s chair, asked him, “How’s your back?” and then passed gas in his face. &nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Jennifer Lawrence-Kitty Jay" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31817 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Jennifer Lawrence-Kitty Jay attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_JenniferLawrence_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>SHE’S JUST KEEPING IT UNREAL<br />
For a story on extreme plastic surgery, ABC News profiled a thirty-year-old Houston woman named Kitty Jay who had undergone $25,000 worth of procedures intended to help her look like actress Jennifer Lawrence.&nbsp;</p>
<p>SOMEONE SEED A CHANCE TO GIG ’EM<br />
As a prank, Texas A&amp;M fans planted maroon bluebonnets, a rare variant, on the UT-Austin campus.&nbsp;</p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 9px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(255, 241, 0);">&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Lawrence Jonap" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31818 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Lawrence Jonap attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_LawrenceJonap_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>IF THAT WAS AN APOLOGY, IT WAS HALF-FARTED<br />
Lago Vista police detective Lawrence Michael Jonap was arrested and charged with&nbsp;assault. His victim, a police department communications operator,&nbsp;said that Jonap sneaked up behind him and kicked him in the back. The next day Jonap shook the man’s chair, asked him, “How’s your back?” and then passed gas in his face.</p>
<p><img alt="Ted Cruz Coloring Book" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31819 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Ted Cruz Coloring Book attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_CruzColoringBook_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /><br />
FROM REALLY BIG COLORING BOOKS’ “TELL THE TRUTH—TELL IT OFTEN—TELL THE CHILDREN” SERIES.</p>
<p>SOONER OR LATER HE WOULD’VE BLOWN A CASKET<br />
Omar Alejandro Gutierrez was accused of stealing a hearse parked outside a San Antonio church during a funeral. Hours later he was arrested more than one hundred miles away, near Junction, after a restaurant employee there called to report a customer who’d walked out on his check and drove off in a hearse.&nbsp;</p>
<p>YOU ARE FREE TO MOVE HAPHAZARDLY ABOUT THE COUNTRY<br />
A Southwest Airlines flight narrowly avoided skidding off the end of a runway at the airport in Hollister, Missouri, because the pilots mistakenly assumed they were landing at the airport in nearby Branson, the plane’s intended destination.&nbsp;</p>
<p>HE OPENED HIS MOUTH AND THEY KNEW SOMETHING WAS ARAMIS<br />
John David Conwill, of Cat Spring, was stopped by Fayette County sheriff’s officers on suspicion of involvement in a no-injury hit-and-run accident in Austin. Their report said they had found open containers of alcohol in the vehicle along with empty bottles of cologne, which they said Conwill drank to mask the alcohol on his breath. &nbsp;</p>
<p>FOR YOU, SIR: MEET BALL PIZZA<br />
A customer entered a Papa Murphy’s in Georgetown just in time to see Austin Michael Symonds rubbing his testicles on the customer’s carryout pizza. Symonds was fired, arrested, and charged with tampering with a consumer product. &nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Illo Derek Poe" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31820 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Illo Derek Poe attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_IlloDerekPoe_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>BE ADVISED, SUSPECT IS ARMED AND MAY BRUISE EASILY&nbsp;<br />
Derek Poe’s advertising strategy to promote the grand opening of his gun shop in Beaumont misfired when his promotional worker was cited for soliciting in a roadway. Police responded to calls from a number of confused and frightened drivers reporting a man standing at a busy intersection carrying an assault rifle and wearing a giant banana suit. &nbsp;</p>
<p>YOU KNOW, JUST TO SAY HOWDY<br />
The South Korean military arrested a 29-year-old Texas man on the banks of a river in a restricted zone near the border. The man told guards he had hoped to swim to North Korea to meet leader Kim Jong Un. &nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="llo Felicia Smith" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31822 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__llo Felicia Smith attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_IlloFeliciaSmith_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>SHE WAS GONE BEFORE HE GOT TO BANG HER ERASERS<br />
In front of her entire class, Aldine ISD teacher Felicia Smith performed a clothed but highly suggestive dance for a male student celebrating his fifteenth birthday. Smith was fired after pleading guilty to having an improper relationship with a student. &nbsp;</p>
<p><em>For the first time in Bum Steers history, we asked readers on social media to come up with some good headlines for two items. Here are the winners, who have earned their place in the Bum Steer pantheon. &nbsp;</em></p>
<p>ILLINOIS HAS A LEG UP ON US&nbsp;(Joyce Sáenz Harris, of Dallas)<br />
The San Jacinto Museum of History failed in a public bid to display Santa Anna’s wooden leg, which is a part of the Illinois State&nbsp;Military Museum’s collection. The Texas museum has long coveted the item, though Santa Anna got the prosthetic after losing his leg while fighting against the French in Mexico, two years after his defeat at San Jacinto.&nbsp;</p>
<p>WE PREFER OUR CATFISH UNBATTERED (Ryan Latham, of Midland)<br />
Lufkin police responded to a domestic dispute in which a man claimed that his sister had slapped his wife in the face with a catfish. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Randy Weber" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31823 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Randy Weber attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_RandyWeber_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>HE WOULD’VE WRITTEN MORE, BUT HE RAN OUT OF CHARACTER<br />
Congressman Randy Weber, a Republican from Pearland, tweeted from the floor of the House of Representatives before President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, igniting a Twitterstorm of withering replies taking him to task for his lack of good spelling, grammar, and decorum. &nbsp;</p>
<p>ARE THEY EVEN CABLE TO CONDUCTOR OWN INVESTIGATION?&nbsp;<br />
The Texas Department of Transportation was forced to postpone the opening of a 7.6-mile section of Texas Highway 195 in Williamson County when officials discovered that the copper wiring in the roadway’s lighting had been stolen.&nbsp;</p>
<p>CHANGING OIL ALL DAY MADE HIM PRETTY VISCOUS<br />
A disgruntled former employee of Pearland’s Auto Max repair shop placed service-reminder stickers on the windshields of several customers that read, “Please never come again. We enjoyed f—ing you in the a—.” &nbsp;</p>
<p>IT’S A NYET LOSS, BUT VODKA GONNA DO?<br />
Oasis Beverages, a Russian firm, announced that it was buying the company that owns Lone Star Beer. &nbsp;</p>
<p>DON’T BLAME HIM—HIS LIBIDO’S ASPHALT<br />
David Michael Gray was arrested and charged with public lewdness after a Harris County woman told police that she looked out her window and saw him “humping and thrusting” on her driveway. &nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Steve Stockman" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31824 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Steve Stockman attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_SteveStockman_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>HE WAS DOING THE PEOPLE’S NONE-OF-YOUR-DAMN-BUSINESS&nbsp;<br />
While campaigning for the U.S. Senate, Congressman Steve Stockman, a Republican from Houston, went incommunicado for more than ten days, missing seventeen floor votes in the process. Upon resurfacing, Stockman said that he’d been on an official trip for most of the “dark period” but offered no explanation for why his staff rebuffed all press inquiries as to where he was.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="JJ Watt" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31826 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__JJ Watt attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_JJWatt_0115_0.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>PRESENTING THE J.J. WATT BUM STEERS CATALOG<br />
After Watt signed a&nbsp;$100 million contract with the Houston Texans, he told a reporter that he had Googled “What do rich people buy?” Never fear, J.J. We are here to help you spend to your heart’s content.</p>
<p><img alt="JJWatt Infograph" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31827 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__JJWatt Infograph attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/jj-Watt_info.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>LEAVING HIS MOTHER TO ASK, “WHAT’S THE DILL?”<br />
A kindergarten student walked out of J. J. Pickle Elementary School, in Austin, and went home to his family’s apartment. The apartment manager called his mother, and she alerted school officials, who, until her call, had not realized the boy was missing. &nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Rex Tillerson" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31828 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Rex Tillerson attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_RexTillerson_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>NOT IN MY ENORMOUS AND EXQUISITELY TENDED BACKYARD<br />
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson joined a lawsuit to stop the construction of a proposed water tower intended to fill tanker trucks hauling water to fracking operations near his Bartonville home. Tillerson and his co-plaintiffs claimed that the tower would lead to excessive noise and traffic. &nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Sleep Pod" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31829 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Sleep Pod attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_SleepPod_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>CAN ALSO BE USED AS SOMEPLACE-WHERE-YOUR-ANNOYING-ROOMMATE-ISN’T&nbsp;PODS<br />
Officials at Texas A&amp;M–Corpus Christi announced that the university was the first in the U.S. to purchase and install “sleep pod” enclosures, which students can reserve for naps of up to an hour.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Rick Perry-Rosemary Lehmberg" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31830 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Rick Perry-Rosemary Lehmberg attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_PerryLehmberg_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>YOU EITHER LOVE IT OR THINK IT’S BULLSHIRT&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="Dan Patrick Tweet" class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__31831 img__view_mode__default attr__format__default attr__field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]__Dan Patrick Tweet attr__field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]__" src="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/BS_DanPatrickTweet_0115.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p>
<p>#OOPS<br />
Dan Patrick, the Republican who was running for lieutenant governor at the time, quickly deleted his errant tweet complaining about a federal judge&#8217;s ruling overturning Texas&#8217;s same-sex marriage ban.&nbsp;</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 05 Dec 2014 21:15:38 +0000Annette Waller59129 at http://www.texasmonthly.comhttp://www.texasmonthly.com/story/bum-steers-2015#commentsGood Points from David Alameelhttp://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/good-points-david-alameel
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I&#8217;ll admit that I didn&#8217;t pay much (i.e., any) attention to David Alameel&#8217;s campaign for the United States Senate this year. Frankly, after the Democratic primary led to a runoff between Alameel (a multimillionaire dentist who had supported Cornyn in previous cycles) and <a href="http://www.texasobserver.org/kesha-rogers-democrat-tinfoil-hat-likely-senate-nominee/">Kesha Rogers</a> (a Lyndon LaRouche activist who wanted to impeach Obama and industrialize the moon) it was hard to take that side of the ticket seriously. But I would like to call readers’ attention to <a href="http://alameelforsenate.com/news/alameel-calls-uprising-democratic-party">the speech Alameel gave on election night</a>, after losing to John Cornyn by a 27 point margin, in which he called for “an uprising” in the Democratic party. (The issue came up during the Q&amp;A section of the Texas Observer&#8217;s post-election panel last night; <a href="http://www.texasobserver.org/listen-texas-observers-post-election-wrap/">audio is available here</a>, for those who are interested.)</p>
<p>He devoted the first half of his speech to settling scores with the state Democratic party, arguing that they had actively undermined his campaign, first by supporting another candidate in the primary (presumably El Paso attorney Maxey Scherr rather than Rogers, <a href="http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2014/11/alameel-to-wary-texas-democrats-this-is-just-the-beginning/">as Kevin Diaz notes at the Houston Chronicle</a>), and later by ignoring him altogether. Those accusations are hard to substantiate. It is true that he lost by a bigger margin than the other statewide Democratic candidates, even those whose campaigns were similarly low-profile. As Jim Hogan observed, his campaign for agriculture commissioner did about as well as Wendy Davis&#8217;s, <a href="http://www.burlesoncrowley.com/news/no-fairy-tale-ending-for-hogan/article_f2843728-fbb7-52cf-ab7c-ca69cc18002b.html">even though he only spent $4,000</a>&nbsp;and didn&#8217;t hold any events. On the other hand Alameel was the only Democrat running in a top-tier race against an incumbent, and as mentioned, there were plenty of reasons to ignore the Senate race this year.&nbsp;</p>
<p>While skeptical of Alameel&#8217;s arguments that the Democratic Party (and Battleground Texas, which he seems to treat as the same organization) hurt his candidacy specifically, though, he did make a provocative argument later in the speech:</p>
<blockquote><p><span><span><em><span>These self-serving elites have failed us for over 20 years and they have the arrogance to assume that they can tell us what to think and what to do?&nbsp;</span>Well, from here on, we’re going to tell them what to do</em></span></span>.</p>
<p><span><span><em><span>The endless poverty in the Black and Latino communities, which are desperate for help, have been ignored by our party.</span></em></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><em>And I assure you that talking to them about abortion &amp; gay marriage, or paying a short visit during election time, is not the answer for their struggle, and they remain totally uninspired.</em></span></span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>With regard to social issues, Alameel may be overstating the case. Exit polls found that 66% of white women voted for Greg Abbott, compared to 39% of Hispanic women; that jars with the Republican argument that Hispanic voters, being disproportionately Catholic, are predisposed to be pro-life voters. As for gay marriage, <a href="http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/23/eva-longoria-the-tt-interview/">as Eva Longoria recently observed</a>, Hispanics in Texas tend to be young, and young people, regardless of ethnicity, widely support marriage equality. And Democrats will probably bristle at Alameel&#8217;s sweeping assertion that they don&#8217;t care about poverty. Many of them do; it&#8217;s probably fair to say that Democrats are more concerned about poverty than Republicans are.</p>
<p>However, Alameel&#8217;s gesturing at something that his party should take seriously, even if they don&#8217;t consider him part of their party. After years of one-party rule Texas Democrats are well-established as the people who aren&#8217;t Republicans&#8211;not necessarily a bad look, in light of certain Republicans. What the Democrats themselves are for, and what they would do if in power, is much murkier. Alameel&#8217;s specific point, that Democrats haven&#8217;t shown enough concern over economic issues is valid. That was certainly the case this year. Wendy Davis <a href="http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/fleeting-moment-substance">spent a day&#8211;one day&#8211;focused on raising the minimum wage</a>, before turning her attention back to her upcoming book tour. Meanwhile, on election day, voters in Alaska, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Arkansas <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/upshot/election-results-2014-minimum-wage.html?abt=0002&amp;abg=0">voted to raise the minimum wage</a> in their states. There are so many factors behind this year&#8217;s Democratic clobbering that it would be silly to point to any one thing as the cause. But if the Democrat at the top of the ticket had run a more substantive campaign, perhaps she would have narrowed the gap a bit&#8211;it&#8217;s hard to see how it could have made things worse&#8211;and left the party in a stronger position for election cycles to come. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>UPDATE: Shortly after I posted this, Jay Root over at the Texas Tribune <a href="http://www.texastribune.org/2014/11/12/internal-memos-detail-davis-campaign-dysfunction/">reported about a January 6th memo</a> warning Davis&#8217;s campaign manager that the candidate&#8217;s failure to set out a message meant that she was being portrayed as a generic national (aka liberal) Democrat, which risked damaging both the candidate and the party.&nbsp;</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-slug field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Politics</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/david-alameel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">David Alameel</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/democrats" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">democrats</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/battleground-texas" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Battleground Texas</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/tx2014" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">#tx2014</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-contributor field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">By:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/contributor/erica-grieder" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Erica Grieder</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-culture-archive field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Archive from Culture:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">0</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-to-culture field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Culture:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">0</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-to-culture-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Culture Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-11-12T15:00:00-06:00">Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - 15:00</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promoted-column-culture field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promoted Column (Culture):&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Left</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promoted-size-culture field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tile Type:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Quote Only</div></div></div><div class="field-collection-container clearfix"><div class="field field-name-field-promoted-quote field-type-field-collection field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promoted Quote:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-type field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Blog Type:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/burka-blog" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Burka Blog</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-popular field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">No</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-featured field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Featured:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">No</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-politics-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Politics Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-11-12T00:00:00-06:00">Wednesday, November 12, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-culture-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Culture Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-11-12T00:00:00-06:00">Wednesday, November 12, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-food-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Food Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-11-12T00:00:00-06:00">Wednesday, November 12, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-home-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Home Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-11-12T00:00:00-06:00">Wednesday, November 12, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-travel-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Travel Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-11-12T00:00:00-06:00">Wednesday, November 12, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-to-promotions field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Promotions:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">0</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-to-promotions-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Promotions Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-11-12T15:00:00-06:00">Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - 15:00</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promotions-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Promotions Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-11-12T00:00:00-06:00">Wednesday, November 12, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-promotions-archive field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Archive from Promotions:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">0</div></div></div>Wed, 12 Nov 2014 22:17:02 +0000Erica Grieder58935 at http://www.texasmonthly.comhttp://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/good-points-david-alameel#commentsFive Reasons Why Texas Won’t Turn Blue This Year (or Anytime Soon)http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/why-texas-stays-red
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span class="drop-cap">W</span>endy Davis. Battleground Texas. “The emerging Hispanic majority.” Texas Democrats had a lot of reasons to think this might be the election cycle when their fortunes turned. But barring some sort of November miracle (or, depending on your point of view, calamity), Texas will remain in Republican hands come 2015. This won’t surprise Wayne Thorburn, a longtime Texas GOP operative and political analyst whose recent book, <em>Red State</em> (UT Press), makes the case that conservative domination is here to stay, at least for a while. Here’s why.</p>
<p>For a high resolution PDF of this infographic,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.texasmonthly.com/sites/default/files/Five%20Reasons.pdf" target="_blank">click here</a>.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 15 Oct 2014 19:39:01 +0000Stacey Van Landingham58736 at http://www.texasmonthly.comhttp://www.texasmonthly.com/story/why-texas-stays-red#commentsA Bright Spot for Democratshttp://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/bright-spot-democrats
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Reporters and Republicans made much of Wendy Davis&#8217;s relatively poor showing on election night. Overall turnout in the Democratic primary was lower than in 2010, the last time there was a gubernatorial election in Texas. And roughly 20% of Texans who did vote in the Democratic gubernatorial primary voted for the little-known candidate Ray Madrigal. He got about <a href="https://team1.sos.state.tx.us/enr/results/mar04_170_state.htm">114,458 votes, compared to 432,065 for Davi</a>s, and he actually won a number of counties in south Texas outright.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But another Democratic candidate made a much better showing. In the race for lieutenant governor, Leticia Van de Putte got 451,211 votes. That&#8217;s only slightly more than Davis, and it should be noted that Van de Putte didn&#8217;t have an opponent in the primary. On the other hand, on the Republican side, Dan Patrick, who placed first, got 550,769 votes. It was a four-way contest, but still, that&#8217;s not even half as many votes as another Republican, Greg Abbott, received for the gubernatorial nomination. It suggests that if Patrick makes it through the runoff, he will be a weaker candidate in the general election than Abbott. That was a great result for Van de Putte.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Ross Ramsey <a href="http://www.texastribune.org/2014/03/13/analysis-kink-democrats-chain/">also has an interesting column at the Texas Tribune</a>, suggesting that Kinky Friedman&#8211;who placed second in the race for the Democratic nomination to be agriculture commissioner&#8211;might actually have a shot at winning the general if he wins the runoff, because both of the Republicans in the runoff, former state representatives Sid Miller and Tommy Merritt, are among the party&#8217;s weakest potential statewide candidates, and have lower name recognition than Friedman.&nbsp;</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-slug field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Politics</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/leticia-van-de-putte-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Leticia Van De Putte</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/democrats" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">democrats</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/tx2014" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">#tx2014</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/2014-primaries" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">2014 primaries</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-contributor field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">By:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/contributor/paul-burka" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Paul Burka</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-culture-archive field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Archive from Culture:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">0</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-to-culture field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Culture:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">0</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-to-culture-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Culture Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-03-13T14:15:00-05:00">Thursday, March 13, 2014 - 14:15</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promoted-column-culture field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promoted Column (Culture):&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Left</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promoted-size-culture field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tile Type:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Quote Only</div></div></div><div class="field-collection-container clearfix"><div class="field field-name-field-promoted-quote field-type-field-collection field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promoted Quote:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-type field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Blog Type:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/burka-blog" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Burka Blog</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-popular field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">No</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-featured field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Featured:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">No</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-politics-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Politics Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-03-13T00:00:00-05:00">Thursday, March 13, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-culture-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Culture Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-03-13T00:00:00-05:00">Thursday, March 13, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-food-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Food Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-03-13T00:00:00-05:00">Thursday, March 13, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-home-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Home Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-03-13T00:00:00-05:00">Thursday, March 13, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-travel-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Travel Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-03-13T00:00:00-05:00">Thursday, March 13, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-to-promotions field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Promotions:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">0</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-to-promotions-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Promotions Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-03-13T14:15:00-05:00">Thursday, March 13, 2014 - 14:15</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promotions-group-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Promotions Grouping Date:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2014-03-13T00:00:00-05:00">Thursday, March 13, 2014</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-promotions-archive field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Archive from Promotions:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">0</div></div></div>Thu, 13 Mar 2014 19:43:01 +0000Erica Grieder57058 at http://www.texasmonthly.comhttp://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/bright-spot-democrats#commentsThe Fight to Keep Texas Red—Wait, What?http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/fight-keep-texas-red%E2%80%94wait-what
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Texas Democrats have, as we all know, been flailing over the past few decades. They are the minority party in both houses of the Lege and haven’t won a statewide race since 1994. Underdogs, we might call them. And even if they’ve been&nbsp;<a href="http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/life-and-death-and-life-party">showing signs of life</a>&nbsp;over the past few months, many observers remain unimpressed: if Democrats don’t start announcing campaigns for the 2014 elections, they won’t even win the Participation Award.</p>
<p>But Matt Kibbe doesn’t scoff at underdogs.</p>
<p>Kibbe is the president and CEO of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.freedomworks.org/">FreedomWorks</a>, a nonprofit group headquartered in Washington, D.C., which supports grassroots conservative efforts around the country. In June, Kibbe and Co. announced a new campaign to keep Texas red called “<a href="http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/freedomworks-unveils-%E2%80%9Ccome-and-take-it%E2%80%9D-campaign-t">Come and Take It.</a>” Its budget is nearly $8 million dollars. Its goal is to send out 250,000 conservative volunteers on the ground around the state. &nbsp;</p>
<p>And its motive is mostly respect, Kibbe said,&nbsp;for the idea that Democrats can actually make some headway in Texas. Whitney Neal, the Director of Grassroots for the campaign, says the plan was originally crowdsourced from activists in Texas who, fearing a blue takeover, called on FreedomWorks for help. Kibbe pointed specifically to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.battlegroundtexas.com/">Battleground Texas</a>, the progressive nonprofit that set up shop earlier this year, vowing to “turn Texas blue.”</p>
<p>“I take [Battleground’s] threat very much seriously,” Kibbe said in a phone interview with&nbsp;<em>Texas Monthly</em>. “I think we’ve got a greater ability to out-organize the establishment Republican efforts, and if we don’t help the activists do that, I’m just afraid it won’t get done.”</p>
<p>In Texas, it’s rare to hear a conservative activist sound so worried. But Kibbe may be haunted by past experience. He had been on the ground in Colorado in the mid-2000s, during the battle over whether to suspend the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, a spending cap that the state had adopted in 1992. While Republicans were divided on the issue, Democrats organized around it. In 2005, they won the suspension—and the next year, Democrats retook the governor’s mansion.</p>
<p>Kibbe described that blue takeover as a “perfect storm,” which included a grassroots ground attack by progressives against Republicans who had abandoned their core principles, like limited government and fiscal responsibility. The Colorado Dems managed to trounce the state&#8217;s GOP in the era before Twitter and big data, tools that&nbsp;the Obama campaign used to major advantage in 2012—and&nbsp;Battleground is staffed by some of those very same campaign wunderkinds, including Obama&#8217;s former national field director Jeremy Bird.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The FreedomWorks campaign aims to employ—and improve upon—those same tactics. “I think that the future of our movement comes not just from meeting the enemy toe-to-toe,” Kibbe said, “but actually beating them at their own game.”</p>
<p>While some have criticized&nbsp;Bird and his colleagues for being outsiders imported from Washington, Kibbe takes pride in the fact the activists working in FreedomWorks’&nbsp;campaign are “native Texans who have a real stake in the game,” Kibbe said in the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/freedomworks-unveils-%E2%80%9Ccome-and-take-it%E2%80%9D-campaign-t" target="_blank">press release</a>&nbsp;announcing the new campaign.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Given the group’s sweeping plans, focusing only on&nbsp;“native Texans” might be unwise. Over the phone last week, Kibbe modified that statement to include all Texans, including those who, as the saying goes, “got here as fast as they could.”&nbsp;Good move on Kibbe&#8217;s part, because 60 percent of the population is not native to the state, according to a 2011 American Community Survey.</p>
<p>Texas’ shifting demographics will play a central role in whether or not blue will splash onto the canvas. Thirty-eight percent of Texas residents&nbsp;<a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48000.html">are Hispanic</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/ted-cruz-poll-dems-have-edge-over-gop-among-hispanics-in-texas/article/2533470">Hispanic voters tend to favor the Democratic Party</a>. That clearly hasn’t hurt Republicans yet, because Hispanics in Texas are&nbsp;<a href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Texas-seen-last-in-voting-4577026.php">still a relatively small share of the electorate</a>. Changing those numbers, from Battleground’s perspective, is key to trumping the Republican party: as more Hispanics turn 18, and if more eligible Hispanic voters turn out on Election Day, the state would most surely turn blue. Or at least some shade of purple.</p>
<p>Many conservatives, including the strategists at FreedomWorks, agree that losing the Hispanic vote would spell disaster for the Texas Republican Party. But Kibbe argues that conservatives can appeal to Hispanic voters, who are, in his view, struggling with subpar education for their kids, which dashes their chances for future economic success. The two major ticket items that “Come and Take It” is pushing are education reform—greater school choice, that is—and economic opportunity. And the whole abortion thing? Out of the picture, according to Kibbe, who said that social issues have never been on FreedomWorks’ agenda and never will be.</p>
<p>In fact, Kibbe insists that the “Come and Take It” campaign is nonpartisan and won’t endorse any specific candidates. “It’s not about electing Republicans,” he said. “This is about creating a constituency for economic freedom and opportunity and real choice of education. And if we do that, the political problems really resolve themselves.” If Democrats were pushing those two principles, he later added, he’d want them to get elected.</p>
<p>Most Democrats might roll their eyes at the idea of finding common ground with FreedomWorks, and some would point out that, despite all the commotion about Battleground Texas, it wasn’t until this summer that the people of Texas showed any unusual interest in the Democratic Party—and the issue at hand was reproductive rights, not jobs. But Kibbe may be right that the “Come and Take It” campaign will appeal to many voters. Texas has always been a small-government state. Its Democrats tend to be more fiscally conservative than their national counterparts, and, for that matter, it would be unlikely for either party to win a statewide campaign by focusing solely on social issues. Regardless of the political activism in Austin, the state of Texas is bigger than the Capitol grounds.</p>
<p>That’s exactly why Texas’s conservatives have been so dismissive of groups like Battleground Texas, with their dreams of turning Texas blue—and it’s why it’s so striking that FreedomWorks, at least, is worried that they’re not just dreaming.</p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 29 Jul 2013 19:54:34 +0000Erica Grieder55484 at http://www.texasmonthly.comhttp://www.texasmonthly.com/story/fight-keep-texas-red%E2%80%94wait-what#commentsCould Hillary Clinton Turn Texas Blue? http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/could-hillary-clinton-turn-texas-blue
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The fact that Hillary Clinton isn&#8217;t officially running for president in 2016 has done little to curb speculation about what will happen if she does. Democrats are excited about the prospect in part because <a href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/01/clinton-could-win-texas-in-2016.html">some very early polling</a> suggests that she would do pretty well—that she might, in fact, have a chance at winning the big red state of Texas.</p>
<p>Unlikely, maybe, but not impossible, and if any Democrat could pull it off, he or she would pretty much have the presidency locked up. Democrats are starting to argue that Clinton could be that candidate, because she is so well-regarded around the nation, in addition to <a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/brent-budowsky/279071-hillary-turns-texas-blue">the usual reason</a>: the changes in Texas demographics portend a change in Texas politics.</p>
<p>Today brought a new development. Steve Munisteri, the chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, told Scott Conroy at Real Clear Politics that Republicans are <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/02/22/can_democrats_mess_with_texas_in_2016_117112.html">taking the suggestion seriously</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>In an interview with RCP, Munisteri said that he has long taken seriously the possibility that Texas could become a battleground as early as 2016, particularly if Clinton becomes the Democratic standard-bearer.</p>
<p>“If she’s the nominee, I would say that this is a ‘lean Republican’ state but not a ‘solid Republican’ state,” he said. “I don’t know anyone nationally who’s scoffing at this. The national party leadership is aware and tells me they’re taking it seriously.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The basic counterargument is Rome can&#8217;t built in a day. Democrats haven&#8217;t held statewide office in Texas since the 1990s, and Mitt Romney won Texas by 16 points in the last election.</p>
<p>There is, however, reason to think that Clinton would fare better in Texas than Barack Obama has done, even setting aside any political and demographic changes from the past few years. In 2008, Clinton beat Obama in the Texas Democratic primay; like her husband, Bill Clinton, she registers as the sort of centrist, pragmatic Democrat that have been most likely to find favor in modern Texas. (Bill Clinton lost the state in both 1992 and 1996, but by margins that now look surprisingly narrow—about 3 percent in 1992, and about 5 percent in 1996. The former is particularly striking because he was running against two Texans, George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot.)</p>
<p>Note, too, that it <a href="http://www.ericagrieder.com/1/post/2012/09/the-top-down-approach-to-turning-texas-blue.html">wouldn&#8217;t be unprecedented</a> for Texas to change its stripes at the top of the ticket before the statewide balance of power shifts. This happened several times in the 20th century, <a href="http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/presidential.shtml">perhaps most notably in 1952 and 1956</a>, when Texas—which was then a one-party Democratic state, and would remain so for several decades longer—went for Dwight Eisenhower, twice. The explanation there was that Texan identity trumped partisan affiliation. Eisenhower had promised the governor, Allan Shivers, that if he was president he would let Texas maintain sovereignty over its oil-rich tidelands. The Democrat, Adlai Stevenson, made no such promise. (For more on the story, see this<a href="http://www.laits.utexas.edu/txp_media/pr/speaker_series_files/transcripts/200810_patterson.html"> 2008 speech from Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson</a>.)</p>
<p>The modern-day equivalent of the tidelands would be for Hillary Clinton to capitalize on the pro-Texan sentiment among Texans by putting a Texan on the ticket. That&#8217;s what JFK did in 1960, by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960">picking Lyndon Johnson as his running mate</a>. To be sure, it might be hard to find a Texas Democrat with enough experience to serve as a viable running-mate: San Antonio mayor Julián Castro, maybe, or his twin brother Joaquin, or one of the other Democrats in Texas&#8217;s congressional delegation. The voters of Texas would be happy with any of the above—some ardent Texans would be charmed enough if the running-mate was a breakfast taco or&nbsp; a horse, come to that—and if it put 38 electoral votes in striking distance, national Democrats would be happy too.</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 22 Feb 2013 20:20:02 +0000Erica Grieder54105 at http://www.texasmonthly.comhttp://www.texasmonthly.com/story/could-hillary-clinton-turn-texas-blue#commentsHow the Democrats passed Voter I.D.http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/how-democrats-passed-voter-id
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Elections committee chair Todd Smith has researched the history of Voter <span class="caps">I.D.</span> legislation in Texas. He shared his findings with me. In 1997, Elections chair Debra Danburg, a Democrat, brought <span class="caps">HB</span> 330 to the floor. The bill amended the Election Code to require an election judge to ask for a photo <span class="caps">I.D.</span> in the event that a voter did not have a voter registration card and his name did not appear on the voter rolls. If the voter did not have a photo I.D., the election judge could not allow the voter to cast a ballot.</p>
<p>The bill was not controversial. It passed out of committee by a vote of 9 to 0. Steve McDonald of the Texas Democratic Party registered in favor of the bill. So did Mary Ann Collins of the Republican party. The House Journal records merely that “<span class="caps">HB</span> 330 was passed to engrossment.” This means that the bill passed on a voice vote. No member registered his opposition to the bill in the Journal, so all members are presumed to have voted aye. The following Democrats who are currently members of the House were shown as present on the day when the bill passed to engrossment and thus can be presumed to have voted for the bill:</p>
<p>Burnam<br />
Chavez<br />
Coleman<br />
Davis<br />
Dukes<br />
Dunnam<br />
Dutton<br />
Edwards<br />
Eiland<br />
Farrar<br />
Flores<br />
Gallego<br />
Giddings<br />
Hochberg<br />
Hodge<br />
T. King<br />
McClendon<br />
McReynolds<br />
Naishtat<br />
Oliveira<br />
Olivo<br />
Pickett<br />
Raymond<br />
Thompson<br />
S. Turner</p>
<p>Thompson was not shown as present on the day when <span class="caps">HB</span> 330 passed on third reading.</p>
<p>So, what happened between 1997 and today to make Voter <span class="caps">I.D.</span> such a white-hot issue? The answer, I believe, goes back to the Bush 43 presidency and to Karl Rove’s decision to make an issue of voter fraud. This in turn led to the uproar over Bush’s firing of <span class="caps">U.S.</span> attorneys who declined to prosecute for voter fraud. Here is an excerpt from Rove’s speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association in 2006: <strong>“We are, in some parts of the country, I’m afraid to say, beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses. I mean, it’s a real problem, and I appreciate all that you’re doing in those hot spots around the country to ensure that the ballot—the integrity of the ballot—is protected, because it’s important to our democracy.”</strong></p>
<p>Readers will recall that the first fight over Voter <span class="caps">I.D.</span> in Texas had taken place a year earlier, when Mary Denny (who had been a co-author of Danburg’s bill in 1997, tried to pass a more restrictive photo <span class="caps">I.D.</span> bill in 2005. But it was Rove’s involvement in the issue, and the subsequent nationwide publicity over the firing of the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> attorneys, that really got the Democrats’ attention. I don’t know whether a photo <span class="caps">I.D.</span> requirement will reduce Democratic voting, but it appears to Democrats as if Republicans think it will, and that is why the battle is raging.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/uncategorized" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Uncategorized</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/democrats" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">democrats</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/democrats" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">democrats</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/todd-smith" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">todd smith</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/todd-smith" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">todd smith</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/voter-id" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">voter ID</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/voter-id" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">voter ID</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-contributor field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">By:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/contributor/paul-burka" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Paul Burka</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-culture-archive field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Archive from Culture:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">0</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promote-to-culture field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promote to Culture:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">0</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promoted-column-culture field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promoted Column (Culture):&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Left</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-promoted-size-culture field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tile Type:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Quote Only</div></div></div><div class="field-collection-container clearfix"><div class="field field-name-field-promoted-quote field-type-field-collection field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Promoted Quote:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-type field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Blog Type:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/burka-blog" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Burka Blog</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-popular field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">No</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-featured field-type-list-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Featured:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">No</div></div></div>Mon, 25 May 2009 15:59:56 +0000admin52197 at http://www.texasmonthly.comWhat’s Left?http://www.texasmonthly.com/content/what%E2%80%99s-left
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span class="caps">POLITICS</span> <span class="caps">ISN</span>’T <span class="caps">ABOUT</span> <span class="caps">LEFT</span> <span class="caps">VERSUS</span> <span class="caps">RIGHT</span>. It’s about top versus bottom.”</p>
<p>“Sure, Wall Street’s whizzing. It’s whizzing on you and me.”</p>
<p>“<span class="caps">NAFTA</span>, do we hafta?”</p>
<p>“Saddam Hussein: Is he insane or just jerking our chain?”</p>
<p>Five days a week, these and other twangy quips roll effortlessly off the tongue of Jim Hightower, nationally syndicated talk show host. Hat off, headphones on, sitting in front of a mike at Threadgill’s World Headquarters in Austin, the former Texas agriculture commissioner rails against big government and big business, standing up to the powers that be on behalf of what he calls “the powers that oughta be.” In our soundbite-obsessed society, it should be the perfect recipe for good radio—not to mention a good career after politics. “I’m in the tradition of the pamphleteer,” he told me recently. “It’s not enough to be agitated. You have to agitate.”</p>
<p>But after sixteen months on the air, <em>The Jim Hightower Chat and Chew Show</em> is struggling to be heard. Although right-wing king Rush Limbaugh is carried by more than 600 stations, and the <span class="caps">AM</span> airwaves are overrun with the equally conservative likes of G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, and Michael Reagan, Hightower’s show is carried by only 107 stations. Worse yet, in Texas, where Hightower is better known than anywhere else in the country, you can barely find him on your dial. Unless you’re within range of <span class="caps">AM</span> stations in Austin, Monahans, El Paso, Lubbock, and Odessa or <span class="caps">FM</span> stations in Seymour and Freer or are logged on to the Internet (<a href="http://www.jimhightower.com;">www.jimhightower.com;</a> <a href="http://www.audionet.com">www.audionet.com</a>), you can’t get the show. Even if you’re sitting across from him at Threadgill’s, you have to request a pair of headphones if you want to listen.</p>
<p>It’s a surprising turn of events for a man who just eleven years ago was one of the top vote-getters among all statewide candidates, outpolling Governor Mark White, Attorney General Jim Mattox, and comptroller John Sharp. A political analyst and activist and a onetime editor of the <em>Texas Observer,</em> Hightower rode into office in 1982 as an advocate of the family farmer, promoting organics and slamming agribusiness, and as a champion of wageworkers, tackling issues from free trade to the environment. He was smart and quick on his feet, his critics had to admit, and he was funny: It was Hightower, for instance, who lampooned George Bush’s patrician upbringing at the 1988 Democratic National Convention by saying that he was “born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.” Yet while in office, Hightower was accused of misusing federal funds for political purposes, prompting Governor Bill Clements to call for his impeachment, and his office became the subject of an <span class="caps">FBI</span> investigation that resulted in the conviction of three of his aides on charges of conspiracy and bribery (Hightower himself was never indicted). In 1990 Hightower was defeated by Republican Rick Perry in a squeaker of an election, but he remained in the public eye. After three years of speechifying around the country, he began syndicating daily two-minute commentaries to radio stations around the country; today they’re carried by more than 150 stations with a potential audience of 8 million and reprinted in several publications, including the <em>Progressive</em> <em>Populist.</em> He has been celebrated as a liberal icon in <em>Mother Jones</em> and other magazines. And last October HarperCollins published his first book, <em>There’s Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos,</em> which gamely defends populism at a time when few others will.</p>
<p>Still, Hightower hasn’t made a splash as a talk show host. Why? First of all, Democrats—Hightower’s core constituency—are in trouble. All the great Texas Dems of recent years—Bentsen, Richards, Cisneros—are out of office and out of politics (unless you count Richards’ work as a lobbyist). Given their scant success in electing statewide candidates lately, Democratic voters in Texas may as well be out of politics too. As for the current Democratic flag carriers: When the Democrat running for governor, Garry Mauro, can’t win the endorsement of the Democratic lieutenant governor, Bob Bullock, you know that Texas Democrats, particularly progressive Democrats, are in a bad way. Of course, progressive Democrats are in trouble all over. Bill Clinton is a centrist, as are most Congressional Dems. Except for the Ralph Naders of the world—who are busy fighting Microsoft, not the Republicans—it’s hard to imagine an audience for Hightower’s firebrand populism.</p>
<p>Talk radio has changed too. Since Limbaugh found his voice in the early nineties, the format has been the domain of conservatives, appealing mostly to white men whose high disposable incomes attract advertisers. Hightower, by contrast, means to speak to a multicultural audience that includes the working poor—a demographic that appeals to programmers about as much as small-towners who tune in to “Want Ads of the Air.” Lately, though, politics of all stripes have been elbowed out by another type of talk: quickie advice and esteem-building of the sort offered by psychotherapist Laura Schlessinger, whose daily show tops the ratings in many markets. If Hightower can’t compete with Limbaugh, he’s no match for Dr. Laura.</p>
<p>Then there’s Hightower himself. He <em>has</em><em>n’t</em> changed—and that’s the problem. His yapping terrier drawl (think Ross Perot, but less grating) isn’t exactly radio friendly, certainly not compared with the booming baritone Limbaugh honed in 30 years on the air. And Hightower’s professional Texan act may finally be wearing thin. It’s one thing for Kinky Friedman and Larry L. King to play characters, but another for thoughtful people like Hightower and Molly Ivins to wrap their political views in yeehaws and hot-damns—especially in the new New Texas, whose diverse citizenry now includes country club Republicans, Central American immigrants, and well-to-do California exiles who don’t know corn pone from crawdaddy.</p>
<p>This combination of realities dogged Hightower the first time he tried his hand at talk radio. Back in 1994, he launched a three-hour show that aired over the <span class="caps">ABC</span> Radio Network on Saturdays and Sundays. The early media buzz pegged him as the left’s answer to Limbaugh, but <span class="caps">ABC</span> pulled the plug a year and a half later. Hightower insists he got the boot because of his frequent on-air criticisms of the Walt Disney Company’s hiring and employment practices before and during Disney’s acquisition of <span class="caps">ABC</span>-Capital Cities in August 1995. In an interview soon after his cancellation, he blamed “the three <em>m</em>’s: my message, the merger with Disney, and marketing, or lack thereof.” But <span class="caps">ABC</span>’s vice president of programming, Frank Raphael, said at the time, “There’s a fourth <em>m, </em>which is ‘malarkey.’ His ratings never really grew.”</p>
<p>Whatever the case, a year later, on Labor Day, 1996, Hightower rose from the ashes to try again. <em>The</em> <em>Chat and Chew Show,</em> which airs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday, came courtesy of the Florida-based United Broadcasting Network, whose initial investors include economic nationalists like the United Auto Workers and Pat Choate, Ross Perot’s running mate in 1996. “I finally had ownership that liked my message,” Hightower said. He also had a place to deliver it. Just as he was about to go live, Threadgill’s impresario Eddie Wilson was preparing to open his new location; he was only too happy to put him on public display on the stage of the new restaurant during the lunch hour.</p>
<p>From the beginning, <em>The Chat and Chew</em> has had typical talk show ingredients: interviews with guests, phone calls from listeners, monologues on issues, and recurring segments such as a report on Congress by labor lobbyists. He also kibitzes with a crew of regulars, including his longtime co-conspirator Susan DeMarco, producer Chris Garlock, engineer Melanie West, and pianist Floyd Domino; all join in the conversation to convey the atmosphere of a few enlightened folks sitting around the coffee shop talking politics. Unfortunately, the quartet evinces little of the spirit of Don McNeill’s old Breakfast Club gang, which Hightower cites as a major influence, and no one has developed into a genuine radio personality, like Howard Stern’s Stuttering John. The back-and-forth is so agreeable and leisurely that it sounds like no chat-and-chew I’ve ever patronized. Where’s the oaf with the loud voice who’s always bellowing above the din? And who the heck in this bunch is speaking for the <em>redneck</em> working man?</p>
<p>Which is not to say there aren’t some things about the show that are worth recommending. For instance, Domino’s piano vamping justifies tuning in regardless of your political leanings. Where else are you going to hear someone intelligently riff Ernest Tubb’s “Waltz Across Texas” and Miles Davis’ “All Blues” in the same half hour? Hightower’s guests—everyone from <em>Rolling Stone</em>’s national affairs editor William Greider, who lucidly explained the significance of the Asian currency collapse, to a motorcyclist campaigning for industrial hemp, which he someday hopes will fuel his racing bike—are informative, entertaining, and in the great talk radio tradition, a little off-kilter. And the ads, if you can call them that, are entertaining too: the promos for the “School of Assassins” video that promises an exposé on <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Army’s School of the Americas; the plugs for <em>Texas in the Morning,</em> the alleged tell-all by Madeleine Brown, <span class="caps">LBJ</span>’s “secret” mistress.</p>
<p>In the end, as with most talk shows, Hightower’s is only as good as the day’s events. Take the debate over fast-track legislation, which President Clinton wanted to push through Congress. Hightower, an energetic opponent of fast-track, made it his obsession for several weeks on <em>The</em> <em>Chat and Chew.</em> He aired regular reports by Nader’s Public Citizens Global Trade Watch from the floor of the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Capitol. He chatted by phone with fast-track’s fiercest foe, House minority leader Richard Gephardt, who gave an eyewitness account of working conditions in Mexico. He even identified undecided members of Congress and gave out their phone numbers in a “Targets of the Day” segment. “These are things that people want to talk about,” Hightower told me. “Something as arcane as fast-track can be a very lively discussion and can rally a constituency across party lines. Our callers aren’t card-carrying liberals. They tend to be libertarians, mavericks, and non-ideologues.”</p>
<p>Hightower sounds like he intends to play the insider-outsider game perfected by Limbaugh, who used his connections to manipulate the political establishment he vowed to destroy and unapologetically strafed the entire landscape, targeting Congress, the White House, and mainstream media, who always missed the real story—no matter what the story was. (Never mind that Limbaugh’s ratings made <em>him</em> the mainstream media.) The trouble is that Hightower isn’t Limbaugh, and his show isn’t Limbaugh’s—and, anyway, it’s hard to imagine hippies sipping smoothies and eating falafel while listening to Hightower in restaurant sections known as “Jim Rooms,” just as right-wingers puffed cigars and devoured red meat for a while in “Rush Rooms.”</p>
<p>After sixteen months, then, <em>Chat and Chew</em> is neither the influential local-affairs program it could be, given the sad state of talk radio in Austin, nor the national affairs program that it aspires to be, a goal that can’t be achieved until he gets picked up by more stations. Not that Hightower seems to care. He has decided that the microphone, not the ballot box, is his destiny, as he so succinctly explained to a caller from Houston when she pined for his return to politics: “Running my mouth, Joyce, is more effective than running for office.”</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 01 Jan 1998 06:00:00 +0000Anonymous31863 at http://www.texasmonthly.comhttp://www.texasmonthly.com/content/what%E2%80%99s-left#commentsWho killed the Texas Democratic party?http://www.texasmonthly.com/content/who-killed-texas-democratic-party
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span class="caps">AT</span> <span class="caps">LEAST</span> <span class="caps">DAN</span> <span class="caps">MORALES</span> knew that the mere proclamation he was going to have a press conference was not likely to stop the world in its tracks. The night before and all that morning, some supporters, as well as the attorney general himself, were busy calling around to say that at the press conference Morales would announce the startling news that he would not run for reelection. The calls worked well enough. The room at the Capitol was overflowing well before Morales’ scheduled appearance at noon. The daily press was there, as well as others, such as myself, who had come just to be pres-ent at what could be a small, improbable, but still significant historic event. Morales entered the room suddenly, announced he would retire to private life at the end of his term, and made December 2, 1997, the day the Democratic party of Texas finally collapsed, not with a bang but a whimper.</p>
<p>Morales said he had decided not to run so he could spend more time with his new wife and her two children, who were standing beside him. The four presented such an appealing picture, it was reasonable to take him at his word. After all, he had never seemed to burn with political ambition. Even though he had won three terms as a state legislator and two as attorney general, he always seemed remote, even uncomfortable as a politician. He is not a party man in the classic mode, nor is he a bold, charismatic politician. Even so, he has never lost an election, he enjoys a 69 percent approval rating as attorney general, he is honest and free of scandal, he is a Hispanic with a Harvard law degree, and he is only 41 years old. The Democrats, who had never completely embraced him, suddenly realized with his leaving that they had lost the strongest candidate they had.</p>
<p>This fall the Democrats will have no incumbent seeking to retain his statewide office. Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock will not stand for reelection and has endorsed Republican governor George W. Bush. Comptroller John Sharp is leaving his office to run for lieutenant governor. Land commissioner Garry Mauro is running for governor. The treasurer’s office has been eliminated, and Morales is leaving as attorney general. But the carnage does not stop there. The state Senate already has a Republican majority. The House now has 82 Democrats and 68 Republicans. A shift of just eight seats leaves Republicans in control. Five Democratic representatives from rural East and West Texas are not running again, and their seats will almost certainly be won by Republicans. Both <span class="caps">U.S.</span> senators are Republican, and thirteen out of thirty members of Congress are Republican, almost a majority. In 1996, more people voted in the Republican primary than the Democratic.</p>
<p>It has been a truism for several years that contemporary Texas is more a Republican state than a Democratic one. That seemed a natural enough evolution. Conservative Democrats, who had ruled the Southern states since Reconstruction, were giving way to Republicans throughout the South, including Texas. But now the rout is so complete it’s not enough to say that the times have changed. The Democratic party is so weak that Morales’ exit, which just a few years ago would not have left a scratch, now appears to be a mortal wound. What happened?</p>
<p>It’s clear that the pinnacle of the party in Texas was the three 2-year terms of John Connally from 1963 to 1969. During most of that time, Lyndon Johnson was in the White House. On the whole, Connally was an effective and farsighted governor, sophisticated rather than provincial. Then came four years of Preston Smith and six years of Dolph Briscoe. They were neither effective, farsighted, or sophisticated, although they were provincial. They were nice enough fellows, and a quarter century later it’s easy to be amused by their idiosyncrasies. Smith liked to shoot pool in local halls and often answered his own phone. At least the call got answered. Briscoe’s office was a black hole that never got organized enough to answer mail routinely. Both governors were incapable of understanding the intricacies of power, and during Smith’s terms, corruption flourished. Nor could they recognize and attract people of ability and situate them to assume major roles when the time came. And what most needed to be done—to create and communicate new goals, ideas, programs, philosophies for the state party so that it stood for something—they were most incapable of doing.</p>
<p>Then came Billy Clayton and Gib Lewis. Clayton was Speaker of the House from 1975 to 1983 and Lewis was Speaker from 1983 until 1993, a total between the two of eighteen years in power. Those years included the most difficult economic period for Texas since the Depression. They saw the election and subsequent reelection of the first Republican governor since Reconstruction. Instead of finding this a spur to action, they took their own long years in office as a sign that the basic politics of the state would never change. Nor would it ever need to change. For almost two decades they embraced and rewarded a system of wait your turn, go along to get along in the Legislature that stopped the ambitious and talented dead in their tracks. New blood could not get ahead by hard work and ability—that is, on merit—but only by being in line behind whoever had gotten there first. That created an ossified party rather than a dynamic one. One Democrat who was unable to find an outlet for his talent and was unwilling to wait is Rick Perry, the Republican agricultural commissioner who is running now for lieutenant governor. He came to the Legislature during those years as a Democrat. But he could make no headway as a Democrat, so he switched parties and quickly became a statewide political figure. Speaking privately about the switch, he said that the Democrats didn’t seem to want him, though the Republicans did.</p>
<p>Since John Connally there have been exactly four Texas Democrats of the first rank. Two, Bill Hobby and Lloyd Bentsen, were the sons of established families with histories of prominence in business and politics. The other two, Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards, were women without family wealth or con-nections who rose by their own abilities and personalities. As a group, they represent the party at its best—a solid traditional legacy of welcoming and encouraging the common citizen of any race or gender.</p>
<p>The first three spent most of their political life while the party was still strong. Ann Richards, elected governor in 1990 in what seemed a certain Republican year, was in a perfect position to reformulate the party by returning it to its roots. She talked the talk by proclaiming a New Texas. But it didn’t happen. As governor she had the opportunity to appoint a <span class="caps">U.S.</span> senator and a railroad commissioner. These appointees would then have the advantage of running for reelection as incumbents. These appointments were the perfect opportunity to catapult a rising star into prominence and strengthen the party in future elections. She chose Bob Krueger for senator and Lena Guerrero for railroad commissioner; both miserably failed to hold the office. Nor did state government in Austin see the arrival of fresh, new talent with fresh, new energy and ideas. Richards was a symbol, not a woman of ideas. As a symbol, she could attract people to herself but she could neither attract nor choose people with staying power in the Democratic party.</p>
<p>Referring to the Republican dominance of the state at his press conference, Dan Morales said, “I don’t think it’s good for the vast majority of elected officials in Texas to come from one party.” This is just what Republicans used to say not so long ago, when the Democrats controlled Texas completely. But any single party that controls Texas sleeps uneasily. Texas Democrats were one party in name only. The fights between the conservative and liberal wings were spectacular and bitter. Again and again the conservatives had to rally their troops to win in the primary only to have to placate the liberals and minorities enough to defeat the Republicans in the general election.</p>
<p>A similar division exists among the Republicans between the social and religious conservatives on the right and the moderates in the center. The Republicans will have to follow the same pattern of defeat and conciliation to win since, just as a liberal cannot win a statewide race in Texas, neither can a candidate of the far right. The Democrats might win a race or two next fall simply because the Republicans, who are new at this specialized political game, could lose their way in these often intricate maneuvers.</p>
<p>But the Democrats will never return to power by hoping for the Republicans to beat themselves. Now it’s the Republicans who seem to have the depth to produce promising candidates and a platform that appeals to Texas voters. During her time in office, Ann Richards said, speaking of democratic institutions, that Democrats need to “bring them into a new decade that requires new thinking and new resolutions… . There is a way to make it work, but we have not found it yet.” Unless they do, the Democrats could lose every statewide election, and it will be the end of one hundred years of Democratic domination in Texas. Republicans could control Texas as long as the Democrats did, and the Democrats will have nothing to do but learn, as the Republicans had to, just how long a century really is.</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 01 Jan 1998 06:00:00 +0000Anonymous31844 at http://www.texasmonthly.comhttp://www.texasmonthly.com/content/who-killed-texas-democratic-party#commentsRace Valuehttp://www.texasmonthly.com/content/race-value
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span class="caps">SPRING</span> <span class="caps">IS</span> <span class="caps">LITMUS</span>-<span class="caps">TEST</span> time in Texas politics. Many voters in the March 12 primaries will be activists whose chief loyalty is to a faction rather than to a party, so the winners of those races will likely be candidates who can pass ideological muster. Here are some of the crucial contests that will decide who has clout in ’96—and who doesn’t.</p>
<h3>The Republicans</h3>
<p><em><span class="caps">U.S.</span> House, Fort Worth</em> Is there a place for moderates in the <span class="caps">GOP</span>? The race to succeed retiring Democrat Pete Geren will measure whether the popularity of ex-Fort Worth mayor Kay Granger can overcome the resentment of right-wingers, who grumble that she isn’t a true-blue conservative—or Republican, for that matter.</p>
<p><em><span class="caps">U.S.</span> House, Southeast Texas</em> Incumbent Greg Laughlin defected to the <span class="caps">GOP</span> at mid-term, but some conservatives in his district are in open revolt. A Laughlin loss could dissuade future party switchers.</p>
<p><em><span class="caps">U.S.</span> House, Dallas County</em> Democrat John Bryant’s departure to run for the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Senate has ignited a classic confrontation between the old establishment (former Dallas city councilman Glenn Box, who has the support of business) and the new populism (Pete Sessions, who is courting the suburbs by accusing Box of impurity on taxes and affirmative action).</p>
<p><em>State Legislature, San Antonio</em> The city’s business leaders are backing insurance manager Caron De Mars against incumbent Frank Corte, a darling of the right, who voted against the interests of San Antonio in last year’s Edwards Aquifer fight. Will voters be motivated by social issues or hometown chauvinism?</p>
<p><em>State Legislature, Austin</em> A battle for the soul of the local <span class="caps">GOP</span>. The leading combatants: the former head of the Travis County Christian Coalition (Kirk Ingels), a moderate black woman who ran for Congress in 1994 (Jo Baylor), and a retiring county sheriff with strong ties to conservative Democrats (Terry Keel).</p>
<h3>The Democrats</h3>
<p><em><span class="caps">U.S.</span> House and State Legislature, Corpus Christi</em> Is there a religious right on the left? A strong Pentacostal organization in Corpus Christi helped elect Congressman Solomon Ortiz. Now Pentacostal minister Trinidad Botello, an Ortiz ally, is running against Hugo Berlanga, a longtime power in the Legislature, while Berlanga’s cousin, State Board of Education member Mary Helen Berlanga, is challenging Ortiz.</p>
<p><em>State Legislature, Houston</em> A shoot-out over concealed weapons. Incumbent Ken Yarborough, a retired labor union representative, is for the right to carry handguns. His opponent, talk show host David A. Jones, is against it.</p>
<p><em>State Legislature, Austin</em> Two Democratic factions go head-to-head: gays and Hispanics. Incumbent Glen Maxey, the Legislature’s only openly gay member, holds a seat drawn for Hispanics that was previously occupied by disgraced ex-railroad commissioner Lena Guerrero. Former school board member Abel Ruiz is his strongest challenger.</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 01 Mar 1996 06:00:00 +0000Anonymous30938 at http://www.texasmonthly.comhttp://www.texasmonthly.com/content/race-value#comments